Dear Editor,
I HAVE read with some hilarity, but mostly considerable repugnance, a recent report in the press of the formal suspension of the Georgetown municipality’s treasurer by the Local Government Commission (LGC) following the completion of an investigation of the discovery of a bag of money in a vehicle assigned to the constabulary and then the deferral of the suspension of this officer by the Mayor and Councillors of the City of Georgetown to facilitate preparation of their budget.

Deferral of a suspension? Suspension is not vacation leave or special leave the employee is choosing to proceed on when it is convenient to him/her and the employer, but rather it is disciplinary action being meted out to an employee when he or she has been found guilty of gross misconduct or other serious disciplinary matters. It cannot be treated lightly, deferred or disregarded at the whims and fancies of anyone as the LGC has ruled and therefore the Council which is supervised by the LGC is compelled to carry out their diktats faithfully without any divergence.

One is left to wonder if and when the Georgetown City Council will stop being a circus. The state of disorder for a number of years that has existed there due to the absence or non-recognition of authority or other controlling systems by the Georgetown City Council is responsible for the present state of the capital city. The question to be asked is whether the current city treasurer, who is relatively new to that position is the only person amongst their nearly 1,000 workforce at the council that can provide stewardship for the preparation of a budget? And why only now midway through the month of January in 2020 is the council preparing the city’s estimates of income and expenditure?

The renown Frédéric Bastiat once said: “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorises it and a moral code that glorifies it.”
Regards
Anu Bihari